Reave the Just and Other Tales (38 page)

Tightly, he said, “I am Suriman.”

She could not still the pain twisting in her. “Then why did you teach me to call you Titus?”

His brows knotted. “I feared such stories as the Roadman told. I thought that if I gave myself another’s name I was less likely to be betrayed—and what name would protect me more than the name of the man who most wished me dead? But I misjudged you, my Fern. I misjudged your willingness. If I had known then what you are now, I would have risked the truth.”

At his words, anger stirred the ring. Flames of ice leaped higher, as though the warlocks fed them with outrage. And Titus cried in a loud voice, “
Willingness?
She is not
willing.
She is a
half-wit
—the poorest and most destitute person in all the Rift. These folk love her—they do not speak against her—but at least one of them has told us what he knows.”

Fern did not doubt that this was Jessup. The other villagers ached to have no part in her downfall. Yet they could not turn away. Fire and fury held them.

“We can surmise the rest,” Titus continued. “She had no
choice,
Suriman. You took her life from her without her consent. You altered her for your own purposes, not knowing and not caring what she wished or desired. She is not willing because she chose
nothing.
”

Suriman did not shift his gaze from Fern. She felt the appeal in his eyes, although she could not see them.

“That is false,” he said softly. “She is willing because she
is,
not because I made her so. She was willing when I found her. She loves pigs, and I was a pig. She would have given her life for me from the first moment she saw me.”

Then the Prince’s daughter spoke for the first time. In a voice made old by too much weeping, she protested, “But
I
was not willing. When you first asked to wed me, I knew your evil. I told my father of it as best I could. You did not heed that, or anything I might have desired for myself. Now I crave you, I cannot stop desiring you, and I chose none of it.

“Was that not a crime, Suriman? Have you not betrayed me? Tell me that you have not betrayed me.”

Like Suriman’s fire, Florice’s pain burned through Fern, making new connections.

He turned to face this accuser. “I did not betray you, my lady,” he answered. He seemed to hold the lords and warlocks at bay with harshness. To Fern, he looked strong enough for that. “I failed you. The distinction is worth making. If I had not failed, you would have craved me utterly. Prince Chorl would have lost a half-wit daughter, and all Andovale would have gained a great lady. You would have been as willing as my Fern is now, and you would have regretted nothing.

“It was my folly that I could not win your father’s trust—and his that he asked this Titus to act in his name.”

Titus reared back to launch a retort, but Fern stopped him by raising her hand. All her attention was focused on Suriman; she hardly noticed that Titus had stopped, or that all the ring fell silent as though she were a figure of power.

“I was not willing.”

Suriman swung back toward her like a man stung. “Not?” The word was almost a cry.

If she could have seen his eyes, she might have told him, Do not be afraid. I must say this, or else I will say nothing. But they remained shadowed, unreadable. She knew nothing about him except what he had chosen to reveal.

“You made me a beggar.” Her voice shook with fright; she felt overwhelmed by her own littleness in the face of these potent men and women. Yet she did not falter. “Oh, I helped you willingly enough. As you say, I love pigs. But in all my life I have taken nothing that was not mine. That shamed me.”

“We would have died!” he countered at once, urgently. “You lacked the means to keep us alive. It is not a crime to ask for help—or to need it. Do you think less of me because I came to you when I was in need?”

She shook her head. “But Jessup did not choose to feed us the second time. The children did not choose to feed us. You chose for them. You cast images into their minds which they did not understand and so could not refuse. You made me a thief.”

“A thief?” Suriman sounded incredulous—and daunted. “You stole nothing!”

“But I lived on stolen things. I grew healthy and comfortable on stolen things. The fault is yours—but you feel no shame, and so the shame is mine.”

“What are you saying?” His voice came close to cracking. “You did not know the food was stolen because you could not comprehend it.” He had another nakedness, which signified more than his lack of garments. “It was beyond your abilities to see consequences which did not take place before your eyes—and you could not remember them when they were past.

“I do not say this in scorn, Fern. You simply were not able to understand. And now you are. I have given you that. You accuse me of a fault which would have meant nothing to you if I had not given you the capacity to see it.”

His need touched her so deeply that tears came to her eyes, and the ring of fire blurred against the dark night. And still she did not falter.

“But you could see it,” she replied. “You knew all that I did not, and more besides. You knew me—you saw into my mind. You saw the things which shamed me. And yet you caused the children of this village to go thieving for my benefit.”

As though she had pushed him beyond his endurance, he snapped back, “Fern, I was
desperate.
I was a
pig,
in hell’s name! If I did not die on the road to be devoured by dogs, I would be slaughtered in the village to be eaten by clods and fools!”

At the same time, she heard his voice in her mind, as she had heard it so often when he could not speak.

Fern, I implore you.

“So is the lady Florice desperate,” she answered him. “So am I.”

Florice could no longer keep silent. “Yes, desperate, Suriman—as desperate as you were. I am desperate for you, though it breaks my heart. But more than that, I am desperate to understand.

“What is this
willingness
you prize so highly? Why must you extract it from women who can neither comprehend nor refuse? You do not desire us as women—you desire only tools, subjects for research. Why must you make us to be more than we were, when what you wish is that we should be less?”

Suriman did not turn from Fern. He concentrated on her as though the circle of riders and villagers and fire had ceased to have any import. When he responded to Florice, his words were addressed to Fern.

“Because, my lady, no woman but a half-wit is able to give herself truly. You say I do not desire you as women, but I do. If I had not failed, you would have lost your flaws—the limitations which prevent you from sharing my dreams and designs—but you would have retained your open heart, your loveliness of form and spirit.

“If that is a crime, then I am guilty of it.” Finality and fear ached in his tone. “Do what you came to do, or leave me be. I am defenseless against you.”

At the same time, his silent voice said beseechingly,
Oh, my Fern, tell me I have not failed.

“We will,” Titus announced loudly. And Prince Chorl echoed, more in sorrow than in anger, “We will.

“I care nothing for your protests or justifications, Suriman,” the Prince continued. “We are not here to pass judgment. That has been done. Our purpose is only to see you dead.”

“Dead,” the warlocks pronounced. “Finally and forever.”

“Yes,” growled the lords and minions on their mounts.

The silver fire leaped up, encircling Suriman more tightly.

“Do not harm Fern!” a farmwife cried out. It was Meglan. Fern could no longer see her: all the villagers were hidden by flames of ice. “She has done nothing wrong!” Then, abashed by her own audacity, she pleaded more quietly, “My lords and ladies, if you say that he is evil and must die, we do not protest. We have no knowledge of these matters. But she is ours. There is no harm in her. Surely you will not hold her to account for his crimes?”

Titus might have answered, but Prince Chorl stopped him with a gesture. “Good woman,” he replied to Meglan, “that is for her to say. Until now, she has made no choices. Here she will choose for herself.

“My lady Fern,” the Prince said across the fire, “the warlock at your side is condemned for precisely such crimes as he has committed against you. Knowing what he has done, and having heard his answers, would you stand between him and his punishment? Or will you stand aside?”

Fern had been changed by fire. Even now, she could not stop making connections which had never occurred to her before. She had said what she must: that was done. Now she took the next step.

Letting go of Suriman, she backed away.

“No!” At the sight of her withdrawal, he flinched and crouched down as though his destruction had already begun; he covered his face with his hands. Spasms of cold shook and twisted his naked limbs.

To abandon him wrung her heart. Softly, so that he only might hear her, she murmured, “My thanks.”

He must have heard her. A moment later, he lowered his arms and drew himself erect. For the first time in the ring of fire, she saw his eyes clearly—the one almost blind, the other marred by a slice of silver. Shivers mounted through him, then receded. He could not smile, but his voice was gentle as he said, “I regret nothing. You were worth the risk. You have not asked me what loveliness is—in that I was wrong, as in so many other things—but still I will tell you.

“It is you.”

Because he did not try to compel her with images or colors or supplications, Fern answered, “Yes.”

“Suriman!”
Florice wailed in despair.

She was too late. The masters of magic had already raised their periapts and apparatus, summoned their powers. In silence the white fire raged abruptly into the heavens: mutely the flames towered over the ring and then crashed inward, falling like ruin upon the warlock.

He did not scream now, as he had when he was transformed. The force mustered against him surpassed sound. As voiceless as the conflagration, he writhed in brief agony while retribution and cold searched him to the marrow of his bones, the pit of his chest, the gulf of his skull. Then he was lifted out of the circle in a swirl of white embers and ash. The fire burned him down to dust, which the dark swallowed away. Soon nothing remained of him except the riders in their triumph, the shocked faces of the villagers, and Florice’s last wail.

As though bereft of language, images, and will, Fern sprawled on the ground with her face hidden in her arms. Her heart beat, her lungs took air. But she could not speak or rise or uncover her face—or she would not. At Prince Chorl’s bidding, two of his minions and one of the warlocks came forward to offer their assistance. Meglan, Karay, and others had already run to Fern’s side, however, and they spurned help. Unexpectedly dignified in the face of lords and magic, Meglan farmwife said, “She is ours. We will care for her.”

“I understand,” said the Prince sadly. “But I give you this promise. At any time, in any season, if you desire help for her, only send to me, and I will do everything I can.”

“And I,” Florice added through her grief. “I promise also.”

Titus was too full of fierceness and vindication to find his voice; yet he nodded a promise of his own.

When the riders were gone, Meglan and the others lifted Fern in their arms. Like a cortege, they bore her to Wall’s house, where a clean room with a bed and blankets was made ready for her. There she was comforted and cosseted as she had once cared for Sarendel’s pigs. Unlike the pigs, however, she did not respond. She lay with her face covered—as far as anyone knew, she slept with her face covered. And before dawn, she left the house. Meglan searched for her, but to no avail, until the farmwife thought to look out toward the refuse-tip beyond her garden.

There she saw Fern scavenging.

After Meglan had wept for a time, she bustled out to the village. She told what she had seen; men and women with good hearts—and no knowledge of warlocks—heard her. Before Fern returned from her scavenging, a new shed had been erected on the exact spot of her former hovel. A new curtain swung as a door; a new pallet lay against one wall; new bowls and cups sat on the pallet. And the bowls were full of corn and carrots, cured ham and bread.

Fern did not seem surprised to find her hovel whole. Perhaps she had forgotten that it was gone. Yet the sight of Meglan and Horrik, Veil and Salla, Karay and Yoel standing there to greet her appeared to frighten her. With a familiar alarm which the village itself had forgotten, she cowered at the nearest hedge, peering through her hair as though she feared what would happen if she were noticed.

In rue and shame, the villagers left the hovel, pretending that they had not noticed her. At once she took the fruits of her scavenging inside and closed the curtain.

From that moment onward, her life in Sarendel-on-Gentle became much the same as it had been before she had been adopted by a pig. From dawn to dusk she roamed the village refuse-tips and the surrounding hills, scavenging scraps and herbs, and storing them against the coming winter. The changes which marked her days were few—and no one spoke of them. First out of kindness, then out of habit, Sarendel’s folk gave her as many gifts as she would accept. The children learned to ignore her; but if any of the younger ones thought to tease or torment her, the older ones put a quick stop to it. As the days became fortnights, even Horrik forgot that he had once desired her. And she no longer seemed to know or care anything about pigs. Her love for them had been lost among the stars and the cold white fire. By slow degrees the present became so like the past that men and women shook their heads incredulously to think the continuity had ever been disturbed.

In this way she regained the peace and safety which had been lost to her.

If the villagers had looked more closely, however—if Fern had worn her mud-thick and straggling hair away from her face, or if she had not ducked her head to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze—they might have noticed one other change.

Since the night when she had transformed her only love from a pig to a man, just in time to see him caught and taken by his doom, one of her eyes had grown warmer, brighter, belying her renewed destitution. The other bore a strange mark across the iris, a thin argent scar, as though her sight had been cut by silver.